The Damnation of Faust
by HumanRabbit
Summary: Every action, every word, has consequences for the world and for  ourselves. Johann Faust VIII has committed too many bad actions, but he has  never truly suffered for them...until now. A different intake of the character  and his destiny, has just begun.
1. The Damnation

**A/N: **Hello, this is HumanRabbit, presenting her first fanfic. I always saw that Johann Faust VIII always stood up from most of Shaman King characters; however I wasn't satisfied at all with the end of things, even if it was the most feasible. I felt that his story (and Eliza) deserved to be told in a separate space. The things he did had positive consequences but also negative ones, which were never explored nor in the manga or the anime, partly because of their dark nature and because it would had deviated from the main plotSo these pages show a very different destiny for Johann Faust VIII, the details about Eliza's resurrection, as well as the separation from his allies will be continued in another story and will will be mentioned briefly.

Final notes: The depiction of Mephistopheles used here is the one that appears on the chapter 120 of the manga

I am co-writing this fanfic with D4rK Sid3, you can find a link to his profile in my favorite authors. Without any other delays, with the fic.

-Disclaimer: Shaman King and its characters are property of Hiroyuki Takei and Xebec studios and we gain no profit out of writing this story. Any other character from other universes are borrowed without any monetary gain and will be properly identified.

**The Damnation of Faust**

**Chapter 1**

Damnation

There was no town like that town. That little town at the south, surrounded by forests and hills, blessed with clear air and lovely skies. That town populated by people who knew each other as members of one large family, some houses only separated by a wall, others far from the streets, by the hills. That town where that couple came one day and settled in a house only connected to their "neighbors" by a thin line of concrete.

The couple in question arrived to town about two years ago when the husband, a rather strange and sickly looking man became the local doctor; at first the townspeople was somewhat distrustful of him, considering the fact that he was remarkably similar to an individual – coincidentally, also a doctor - whose wife had been murdered and went insane almost ten (or were they twelve?) years ago. Nevertheless, the stranger proved to be not only a superb healer, but also a kind and polite –if introverted and nervous – person, and that story was just too old and too silly, and also there was to remember that, before Dr. Faust arrived, the closest doctor was almost two hours away from town, so eventually they accepted him. The wife, on the other hand, was quite sociable, most of time sporting a smile upon her warm, fresh face and managing to find the peachy side of things, nothing like her somber looking husband.

To the townspeople, it was weird that such a beautiful and cheerful woman would be married to such a… man. There was something about him – aside of his appearance, a mixture between a concentration camp survivor and one of those gothic rock star persons – that made others feel uneasy. Had they only known…

During that summer afternoon, on the solitary freeway, Doctor Johann Faust VIII was driving alone, restless and nervous. Although the stressed expression upon his face would've given the impression of a most terrible scenario, the doctor was merely clearing his head at his wife's demand.

For those who know nothing about his story, Dr. Faust was not the ordinary medicine man nor his marriage was the common one either; it would be somewhat long and bothering to narrate the entire situations this couple has been through, so let us resume that they were - shall we say - reconstructing their relationship from the ashes of mistrust and other marriage issues.

The efforts made by both of them (in particular hers) had their reward after a year and five months: the passion returned to their lives and from 3 months to the current time, they were blessed by the joy of parenthood - to be...nevertheless, there was still a problem to be solved: Johann was very attached to his Eliza and one of the things she imposed in first place was the need of personal space; not that she would cheat on her husband or any infamous activity, but the fact of having him around virtually all the time was an annoyance for any woman. Johann was aware of this in spite he always felt an imminent disaster whenever he left her home alone:

"What if it happens again? What if this time I loose her…forever? And now that there'll be another one in our lives…I couldn't take two victims in my heart, never! − Don't behave like a stupid, Johann! You must be calm, you promised it! Your baby needs a father that can keep calm in the eye of the storm…"

The good yet nervous man was swinging in such thoughts as his free hand reached the glove box and poked inside, searching for anything that could distract him and when that hand finally found something among the papers and coins, he had to stop the car when he saw a joint in front of him. The doctor wasn't too proud of realizing he had such thing in his car without noticing – he had to buy a second hand one, a brand new one was far from his possibilities at that time. However, he already tried many other drugs and there weren't any policemen at sight, so he lit the joint and put it in his mouth while he held the ten and two in his trembling hands. Feeling the smoke inside his mouth and a strange lightness taking over his usually heavy body, the man continued his path towards tranquillity, realizing that all his fears were nonsense and her wife would proof to be stronger than he believed her to be at the hour of truth, or so he was thinking.

By the time the blue in the sky was fading away, Johann turned around and started the road back home. Happy of achieving peace of mind after those tortuous minutes, he needed a pair of times to realize that something in the road had changed: The colours were more intense, almost like chromatic acid, and a sea of skeletons clad in Mexican outfits were marching in his direction, but when he tried to shoo them, they just evaded the car as if it was a rock in a river. Then large elephants similar to those of Dali's painting were crossing the path, and a zoo of more rarities filled the freeway.

Understanding that his little joy ride had gone too far, the doctor immediately removed the joint off his mouth and threw on a side of the road. Closing his eyes with a hardness that'd be confused with the childish exercise of having them squeezed by his lids, he struggled to organize his mind…and the moment he opened them, he was struck by a noisy wall and a blinding light.

The doctor didn't know for how much time he had been out. They could have been minutes, perhaps hours. When his eyes finally opened, he realized there was something wrong: he wasn't in his car, but lying on the floor. As a matter of fact, the car was nowhere to be found, it have seemed to disappear out of thin air.

Looking around, Johann tried not to collapse under the weight of his own and omnipresent fatigue, a fact that his shaking arms reminding him so. He groaned when he felt the pulse for a sudden rush of vomit and instead shook his head left and stumbled along the floor. His languid eyes felt the weight of the eyelashes trying to close in, a slap to his cheek was the answer for that recommendation.

Finally, for the first time that felt like ages, the man took a look of his surroundings: A bleak landscape of whistling whirlwinds and menacing dark silhouettes under a plutonic, starless sky.

At first confused of how and why did he land in such a place, his brain twitched in a certain order of neurons to let rationality to get the mess of his body and mind in order; however, every time he tried to make a theory after another to explain his situation, all lead to the same points: He being lost…or dead.

Impossible, impossible! – He said to himself, shaking his head in feverish disbelief – I cannot die! Eliza is waiting for me at home, she must be worried sick! I just passed out from the joint and - -

The cogs of his head twirled menacingly against the very need to explain why the hell those swirling shadows tried to swallow the remaining clarity of where he truly was. Amok the murky skies were the filthy reminiscences by the very representation of the figures that splinted the clouds like shards of glass.

Gasping, Johann tried in vain to voice a sound that would snapped him out from that stasis, anything that could wake him up or cause a reaction that'd made adrenaline to rush through his morphine tainted bloodstream, and made him run and /or fight the dark figures that seemed to notice his presence and started to approach him. However, the fear - induced paralysis over his body had impaired his vocal cords of working properly. Only his eyeballs were seemly functional, fixated to the tartaric legion coming closer by the minute.

In a sudden twist of that tense intrigue, the whistle of the winds was interrupted by the sound of metal hitting stone. The rickety rattle began to get louder with each agonizing second, as an unidentifiable figure made its way from the cloud of mist that surrounded every piece of land, clad in the movement of the rattle. Four set of red pebbles shown their way out of the gloomy dark and with that, Johann Faust VIII's apprehension rose to new levels and out of it, the forms of four horses appeared against the disbelief of his eyes. The horses were attached to a carriage of dark wood, their rider cloaked and unrecognizable. The rattle of the wheels of the carriage drilled a hole into his nerves and unable to take it anymore, he shouted:

"WHERE IS GOD'S NAME AM I?" His mouth managed to say out loud, finishing the torturous struggle between his dread and his reasoning.

His question was answered when a cloud of dust blurred his sight and a strangely familiar voice replied with another question:

"Hey stranger, what are you doing here, in the middle o' nowhere?"

Johann stayed apprehensive panting and puffing for breath at his sudden outburst. The newcomer, sensing the confused man's tenseness, let go off the reins and climbed down the carriage. The doctor stumbled a few steps back swiftly, feeling threatened by such a baffling individual climbing down the wagon, with the horses nickering in response with the sudden movement of the carriage.

Coughing, Faust shook his hands to dispel the dust around him, his sight cleared when the mysterious rider revealed a face that got the best of Faust's surprise, for it was the least person he ever expected to encounter at such place:

"Frank…Zappa?"

"If you say so" said the stranger with a smile, lending his hand to the confused man on the floor. "Would you like to take a hitch?"

Johann stayed transfixed into the musician's hand, not quite believing what his eyes saw: From all people he could find in such a barren and grim realm, it had to be a deceased musician from his medical school days?

Perhaps he had died at the road and a 'familiar' face was taking him to the underworld. Perhaps it was a monster using a 'friendly' disguise to fool him and make him its dinner. Perhaps it was not. Such thoughts caused Faust to doubt Zappa's offer for a second.

Then again, his surroundings were rather creepy, the incessant noise of the horses and the cringing of the carriage didn't help to ease his nervousness either, not forgetting that he had to go home, and staying like an idiot in the middle of that no man's land wasn't going to get him any close to there.

The stranger hand trembled in impatiently while Johann nearly choked on his own anxiousness; but with the sordid taste of confusion ringing in his mind and with the need to tell what the hell was going on, it was better to go with something at least recognizable.

He sigued, there goes nothin. "I suppose". The Doctor finally answered to the Musician, who helped the lost man to stand up and made him to sit beside him in response.

The silence of the landscape was cut out when the horseman snapped the reins, causing the horses to proceed their way towards their yet – unknown destination.

The two men sat side by side, each immersed in their own objectives: The driver had his sight upon the seemingly endless road, and the passenger had his mind on his Eliza whom, by then, must have tried to call him at that useless gadget called 'cellular phone' she made him carry whenever they were separated. He checked the apparatus in question a couple of times, but it was dead.

"Pathetic piece of plastic", Faust growled to himself as he shoved the phone back in his pocket.

"So" Began Frank out loud to vanquish the unbearable silence between him and his companion. "You haven't tell me your name, mister..."

"Uh, Faust. Johann Faust VIII, mister Zappa" Faust nervously replied, ashamed at his discourtesy of forgetting the single soul he could relate with at that place and time.

"Johann Faust VIII" Calmly repeated the musician, repeating the name like an ice cream flavor never tasted before "You must be quite the notorious guy with such a name"

The man did not know how to answer, he had never venerate his own name as important; only his job, lending a hand for those who needed him the most. To tell the truth, he had never exchanged more than a few pleasantries with the citizens of the town; his wife was more sociable and amicable than him…or maybe she didn't result as creepy to them as he was.

The musician refrained to give that answer a pull and instead focused on the road again. Glancing at his left and smiling, he asked again.

"I take it you are the silent type"

"The only notorious person in my family was my ancestor. The rest of us were simple doctors" He finally answered, lowering his head in embarrassment.

"I meant, in your daily life: School, work, among your patients" The musician tried again.

"Well, at med school I was nothing more than the latest person with that surname, as for my patients they don't mind it at all"

"And how about your childhood?" Pressed Zappa.

Johann sighed. "Let's say I didn't have much of an ordinary childhood. As I said, I descend from a notorious man, who gained his fame by committing awful deeds, unspeakable crimes that only could be explain in terms of magic and mythology. I guess I don't have to name it for you, Mr. Zappa"

"Faust the first. A scholar and alchemist in 16° century Germany. Was mostly famous for the myth of selling his soul to the demon lord Mephistopheles, in exchange for-" Zappa was interrupted.

"Forbidden knowledge, among other things, yes. Whether it was a true story or not, it has been a heavy burden to the Faust bloodline during all these centuries. Perhaps that was the reason I was virtually alone as a child, perhaps it was my education; I can't say…there are many parts of my memory that are blurry to me, the only thing true is that I was alone" Completed Johann clenching the sides of the carriege.

The rider said nothing, his eyes pinned to the bleak road, but his ears were paying close attention to his companion's words. After a short pause, Faust, now more trustful, continued.

"More than alone, I was isolated, isolated from other children, from whatever events were occurring around the globe. Nevertheless, there was only one person that entered my world, and by doing it, my heart became hers forever"

"Hers?"

"Eliza. My only and absolute love. My wife" He answered smiling, savoring each word. "We've been together for so many years, been through so many misfortunes and yet, we love each other like the very first moment"

"You certainly cherish your wife, that's a rare thing to see these days" Mused Zappa with a soft smile, at which Faust nodded, his passion creating beautiful stars and spreading them across the dead sky.

"We're going to have our first child this year. I've never been so happy and so terrified at the same time, do you know that feeling?"

"The one of having my first child, or the one of being happy and terrified at the same time?" Frank joked to set a lighter mood.

"Any of both, I supposed" Johann contempled.

And so, the two men spent countless minutes, perhaps hours in the road exchanging remarks here and then. But Zappa said nothing when the air suddenly turned colder for every whistle of wind in the carriage, until Faust found himself puffing hot breath at his hands.

"You don't seem to be much of a cold weather person, do you Mr. Faust?"

"It's not that" He replied while he rubbed his arms around his body for warmth "I was in a hot place before ending up here...about that well... "

"Yes, Mr. Faust?" Asked the seemingly impervious to cold musician.

"May I inquire: where exactly are we?"

"Where were you before ending here?"Zappa replied, dodging the doctor's question.

Faust stayed more on his thoughts than everything else. Even as the steel wheels of the carriage stalled against every pebble in the road, his thoughts did not falter about the strangeness he felt about the events when he first arrived in this, this Indescribable feeling of naught as well. Zappa's question lingered in his mind, digesting his doubts for a few seconds.

"I…I was driving away from home. Or I think I was when I f-" Faust stopped short, suddenly remembering the marihuana joint and a question popped on his head:

"Surely vintage marihuana did not have this hallucinogen trip right?" He thought and for the first time realized the situation in he was in. Perhaps this was just a dream and he was passed out against the glass of his car.

"Something the matter?"

In that moment, the carriage could have made a misstep in a large rock, because Faust Johann felt a small pebble hitting him straight on the head. He winced immediately with a hiss, bringing a hand to the throbbing wound...blood.

Even as his confusion level reached a new height, the discomfort of the wound did not stop and neither the vibration of the carriage under his body.

"Nothing" He replied or at least he felt he had "I was in my car, yes my car and I think I hit my head against the window, then nothing I woke up here...disoriented and without any clue"

"You don't sound too sure of it" Answered Zappa "Nevertheless, I'll answer your question: We are riding across The Valley of Bones, near the Cygnia country"

"The Cygnia country?" Inquired Faust.

"Yes, but it's not there we're heading to. Instead we're going towards the other side, to the lands of Thurinja the dark one"

"I … I don't know any place with those names, Mr. Zappa. They confuse even more"

"Don't worry about that, Mr. Faust. We'll arrive soon there, and maybe you can figure out how to return home. Or to obtain the answers you seek" Answered the carriage driver.

Observing another wave of uncertainty in his passenger's face, he hastened the speed of the horses by cracking the reins.

Faust looked at the driver with confusion, while failing to remember why transpired over his own mind just what was wrong. He felt...all this indescribable as the meaning of life; instead of asking again just what the hell was unwell with this train of thought, he managed to calm his inner doubts and gaze around the scenery, just like he had been doing for some time.

Strangely, the landscape started to show signs of civilization in the form of towers. They were too distanced from each other and from the carriage, but there were tiny spots of lights in them, clearly indicating a life form inhabiting them, like fireflies on giant, unearthed bones. Eventually Faust concentrated in those small dim lights, somehow wishing it was just a bad dream. The ride and the near area of civilization keep his mind at edge, even though the silence was certainly deafening, the bumpy sound of metal against rock didn't let his mind rest.

"You've been quiet lately, Mr. Faust. Is there anything now disturbing your mind?"

The doctor simply shook his head, not wanting to feel any more uncomfortable than he already was. Even as he were, not saying the particular phrase of 'What in God's name is happening?' He would let his own doubts guide him to the very answers Mr. Zappa had promised on their destination.

As they came closer, smaller structures around the towers became visible, all in an architectonic style that reminded Faust of his childhood hometown – his current hometown's watermill had to be reconstructed after an allied bomb raid during WWII, and the main architecture was more of 18° century than the renaissance style he was born and raised in, until his early adulthood.

However, these monochromatic structures turned out to be minimal in comparison with the plutonic towers that raised themselves to the sky; the same grim deathly looking sky greeted his sight upon the very town they were advancing upon. The curve of the hill where the embedded road changed into a cleaner one, the rocks seemed to have that special shine that he could have considerate to call a street instead of cheap rock thrown into the dirt like the rest of the road.

"We are almost there" Informed Zappa with a small chuckle, raising more doubts than relief.

In the distance, Johann could see the towers so close, like two sharp canines of a savage beast rising to the sky. At their top there was a flag wavering with the wind, red as blood tracing the dark sky with their erratic flow. Although Faust couldn't made it out very well, the flag had a symbol rather familiar to him, one of the many he had seen and used during his years of studying necromancy. However, the fact that said symbol was imprinted on the tower's flag added a hint of disturbance to his already complicated emotional state.

The road shortened with each bounce of the wheels, the metal clanking against the pebbles and stone; he felt his heart starting to jump against his chest, but from fear...far from his body. An overwhelming desire to shout, to jump off the carriage and to race the remaining road on foot, just for the answers he was seeking, almost overcame him. Nevertheless, the closeness of Mr. Zappa kept him in a state near to calm. After all, there had to be someone who could help him to return home, to Eliza.

Above all, his desire was to return to Eliza: How much he wanted to hold her against his arms and hearing her whispering how much she loved him, how much he had completed her life, and to feel her soft flagrant lips against his own. And then there was the love they treasured together, growing inside her womb. For the last months (their firstborn would arrive in winter, yet the enthusiasm was too much) he had caressed her every growing stomach with a smile; wanting to remember each kick, each groan of discomfort and comfort when he placed both of his hands on her warm stomach. Long days he had spent with his ear on her tummy struggling to listen to anything that could gave him a sound, any sound that could bring him a clue of what the baby would be, but all he had in the end was the growling of Eliza's stomach craving more food.

A small bump in the road raised him from his thoughts, as he gasped; he directed his attention to his eyesight. The small gaps in the wooden walls keep company to the dark towers shaped like darkened stone fangs; they loomed over the entire town, their shadows almost swallowing the little light that existed.

The stone floor, blackened from activity could suppose Faust, guided them to a stone arc that engrossed the heavy double doors, the thick wood murky from all the years of shameless neglect. The wagon seemed to be destined to fall upon every single stone and hole on the weathered road bashing into the metal rimmed wheels, something that Johann noticed with irritation.

The strange part was, that there was nobody to receive them, no guards to gaze at them suspiciously, even as the carriage went through the gates, there were two ancient weapons embedded in the walls, two halberds rested against the stone. Not giving this importance, the shadow of the granite arc looked over them for a second and they were into the town.

Now he could see it, in all its glory, if a hole like that could be called a town:

The tiles of every house's roof were filled with grime, their walls too filthy gray for his tastes. Even their doors and windows were barred by chipped ancient looking wood. There was no soul on the streets, in fact it looked deserted; and when he thought he had seen it all, at the corner of his eyes he could almost feel shadows peeking around his corneas, teasing him.

The wind howled with each passing crack of the wheels of the carriage, even as he tried to ignore the apprehensive feeling, the shadows dancing around his eyes and those towers snapped him out off his thoughts.

It had all been a mind-numbing blur to him, his memories staining his thoughts, he found himself surprised when the carriage stopped and Zappa snapped his fingers in front of his face.

"Alright, Mr. Faust, this is it: the end of the line" Said the driver stretching a lazy arm, his leather gloved hand signaling to a particular direction.

"Wait Mr. Zappa, where are we? There's no one here" He exclaimed with an accusatory look.

"Patience"Answered the driver. "I promised answers, and thus you'll be given those only if you follow that direction" Zappa emphasized the direction with his finger again. Faust followed his fingertip to a narrow and long street. Sighing, he jumped out off the carriage, giving the whizzing right horse a pat on the head.

"Thank you Mr. Zappa, I hope will be seeing each other again" He said with a smile, extending his hand to Zappa; upon holding his hand in the air to him, Zappa stayed fixed on it, seeming unknowing to what to do, until finally he set his sight upon the road again, cracked the reigns and turned around, back to the abysmal trail where he came from.

Faust's surprise turned into mortification, but eventually his doubts weighted more than his own confusion and simple as that, he took a step to the street.

Johann shook his head with another heedful sigh abruptly feeling the need to turn around. He had heard it, a laugh, a child's laugh, like if some abrupt reason when he looked over his shoulder, there was nothing to be seen. With a frown he continued, feeling for the first time the chilling air that surrounded the town like a buried coffin.

He puffed hot air on his hands literally watching the puff of cold air evaporating in the air; with a groan, he pulled the collar of his jacket tightened against his neck in an effort to stop the cold that chilled him to the bones.

Yet for every step he took, the walls felt like closing in, for every breath he took, the air did not fill his lungs. He began to wheeze, almost like suffocating on the fog that wrapped his eyesight. He puffed more for breath but every time he did the air was pulled out off his long until he felt like someone had took a grip of his throat and started to squeeze.

Johann coughed for breath; he felt his lungs started to burn from the lack of oxygen, his throat constricted like he had choked on a chicken bone; as if to regain his unbalance, he placed both of his hands against a wall to no end.

He fell, the world went spinning with him; he heard them…the laughs, the colors whirling around him, the children's laugh and unremarkable faces mocking him on his despair.

You'll be given those only if you follow in that direction - He heard that voice filling with a wave of inverted vocal cord as he choked for air.

Then just darkness…

**A/N: **This bring us to the end of the chapter. I had plenty of fun describing all the events...as for our special guess, the musician, turned into the carriage driver of the death...the musician Frank Zappa. Yes, I included him because he is one of my favorite musicians and I loved to give him a spot into the story. His development is interesting and while he won't have a frequent place into the story, he will be here and there from time to time. He just popped in the scenes, kinda to add a freaky tone that would give the sense of a hallucination. Overall, me and D4rK enjoyed writing this. Expect the new chapter very soon. Please review, nevertheless, thank you all that read, put it in your favorites or reviewed. Thank you all.

This is HumanRabbit signing out and stay tuned for the next chapter. Have a good one!


	2. Inferno

**A/n: **Hello, this is HumanRabbit, Im glad to present the next chapter, after one week of excellent writing. In this chapter, Johann finds himself in a situation he never expected, and I hope you guys find this as unexpected as me and D4rK found it when we began writing this. As a warning, this chapter is kind heavy with descriptive violence and physical abuse, so beware. On with the chapter. Enjoy!

-Disclaimer: Shaman King and its characters are property of Hiroyuki Takei and Xebec studios and we gain no profit out of writing this story. Any other character from other universes are borrowed without any monetary gain and will be properly identified.

**The Damnation of Faust**

**Chapter 2**

Inferno's Trial

In spite of his awareness of not being at home or in his car before opening his eyes, nothing would've ever prepared Faust for what awaited him when he recovered conscience:

In first place, he was on his knees, rather than laying on the floor as he remembered himself to be when the streets closed down on him. Secondly, he couldn't move, maybe due to the shock or due to the chains, ending in cuffs attached to his wrists, ankles, waist and neck, binding his naked body. Yes. His clothes, his shoes, and every other item he was sure to carry along had mysteriously disappeared.

Finally, his eye field was blocked by what seemed to be metal bars. He spun his head around – at least all that the cuffs allowed him to – to realize he was inside a cage.

Also, an unbearable murmur was filling the air, mixed with sounds of laughs and whisperings in a language he couldn't understand at all, yet its pronunciation was similar to his native German. Unable to distinguish anything beyond the cage's bar, Faust started to scream, shaking his shackles and trying to rise from the painful position he was in. Suddenly, a voice intelligible rose above the cacophony of onomatopoeias and whispers:

"Attention, honorable members of the jury! The court is in session!"

Johann raised his hangs to hug the metal bars with a deep scream of frustration:

"What's going on?"

His shout managed to free itself from the cage and crashed into the ceiling, its demise making an echo that resounded through all place, but unfortunately falling onto deaf ears.

When the eyes of the trapped man posed on the keeper of those voices swirling the air around him, his air jammed on his throat.

Johann couldn't believe his ears when they were filled by those words; and he wasn't able to believe any less his eyes when they saw one of the most unspeakable horrors ever imprinted upon them:

Outside of the cold and hard cage, were hundreds, perhaps thousands of monsters sat and organized in the manner of a jury, some of them looked clearly like the academic definition of demons or devils, while others seemed to be birthed from the darkest recesses of the most tormenting nightmares.

He backed to the center of the cage with a frozen scream in his throat; he blinked once, then twice, to try to erase the monstrosities gathering around. Everywhere he looked, dozens of those things were there to look at him. Their disgusting eyes were directed at him or at the horrifying being at their side with their long fingers pointed at him, almost accusingly.

The voices only got louder when the monsters seemed to notice that he was quite well aware of them and that only made him more apprehensive about the whole ordeal.

"What's going on?" He demanded once again, this new pledge dying in the same manner the first did.

There was another sound, one that took the company for granted with their voices: a laugh.

"Order, oh members of this honorable jury!" The voice spoke again, silencing the hideous menagerie – The judges to this trial have arrived!

With this sentence, a new row of demons appeared in front of Faust's flinched eyesight:

A total of eight creatures were sitting at a bleached white table with carvings of symbols and depictions of monsters. All of them were clad in robes of dark colors, shades varying from blood red to emerald green to plum to pitch black; all of their eyes pinned to the man in the cage.

"Presiding over this court, the ruler of this realm, the honorable judge and hell master Mephistopheles" Pronounced the voice again, causing Faust to gasp in utter horror, as the demon in the middle stood up, its eyes still fixated upon his sorry person.

The symbol on the flag! How could he forget it? It was Mephistopheles' flag! This was no nightmare, no hallucination! He was in hell!

And the monster himself, so many times he had seen his visage imprinted in the pages of his ancestor's notes and not a single moment he had pay the proper attention to it?

Those longs and bone – like limbs showing from the sleeves of the crimson robe, those fingers festooned in seductive rings, that perfect mask of cynicism and cruelty for a face: the sum of all of that and more was the being Faust VIII traded his soul, his health and his sanity to, almost ten years ago.

Still sporting that same stoicism, Mephistopheles set a hand over the table and kept staring at the man inside the cage before a voice, so haunting that it sounded human, spoke to the imprisoned man:

"Are you the mortal human, Johann G. Faust VIII?"

"I-I am!" Faust heard himself answering; unsure of whether the fear or an unknown force was what made him talk.

Another demon judge, an androgyny looking creature with ophidian features and horns, rose from whatever she was sitting at and summoned a scroll from thin air. After unrolling it down, the judge started to read in a masculine voice:

"Johann Faust VIII, you stand here accused for the charges of body robbery in 1° degree; unauthorized use of necromancy and consequent disruption from the human and the demonic realms' energetic balance; massive energy and magical theft from this demonic realm and from His Honor, Great Lord Mephistopheles; blasphemous usage of His Honor, Great Lord Mephistopheles' name and image; all of these charges being subsequent to the main crime. Violation of the Family Pact created between your ancestor and His Honor"

Johann stayed frozen on the spot. Not only was he shivering inside his prison, that cage with menacing bars and uncomfortable floor but his ever growing doubts and confusion had only increased with those accusations; as the strange creature read the charges against him, he started to clench and unclench his fist with the expanding fury that took hold of his resolve.

"I-I didn't do any of those things! Why I am here?" He impulsively shouted to the judges. His voice curled at the end with his own fury, his body shaking from rage only as the faces of the demons turned to Mephistopheles who sat on his throne, with a hand hugging his unperturbed face.

The demon who had been reading the charges hawked his throat irritably at the interruption:

"Those are the charges that hereby Johann Faust VIII to this court" He concluded, before taking his seat, as all eyes stayed upon the big demon on the throne, waiting for his word, for his command.

He simply stretched the right side of his mouth in a sarcastic smile and spoke to the prisoner, whose face was fixated in a defiant grin.

"You have not the least idea…of why you are here, do you Mr. Faust?"

Johann flinched repressively at his words with a visible cringe of his face. At the sight of that, Mephistopheles' sadistic smile widened into a full grin and stood from the chair with a heavily terrible noise, before continuing:

"Perhaps I should remind you of a little story you might know too well. The story of your foolish ancestor…how he abused of the power he was given from me to his ridiculous and selfish goals, how he pretended to become even more powerful than myself, every single creature in the demon-verse and his God. And of course, how he doomed himself"

Faust said nothing, the omnipresent confusion preventing his lips from pronouncing a word that could cause him harm, allowing Mephistopheles to go on:

"Nevertheless, eternal damnation awaited in vain for the soul of Johann Faust I when, by grace of the angels and his latest lover who prayed a thousand times over his grave, he ascended to an undeserved period in heaven to purify before his next incarnation; thus reneging on his part of the contract. And, at difference of the human made type, a demon contract must be fulfilled, one way or another"

"NO CIRCLE, NO PACT, NO TASK, NO SENTENCE SHALL BE LEFT INCOMPLETE! TIS' THE LAWS, TIS' SHALT BE!" Replied the minor creatures in a thunderous chorus.

"Thus, the condemn fell upon the one whose blood was the closest to Faust I. His child, yet, his mother, an innocent woman who shed many tears of mercy over the father's grave and over the infant child, proposed a deal: If none of the Faust bloodline would ever use those powers, MY powers, their souls would be freed from condemnation at my realm. I was forced to accept, as innocent tears shed over a grave are an unbreakable oath"

However, the influence of the magic took its toll upon the following descendants. With the passing of centuries, the Faust clan forgot about the pact and about me, blaming their misfortunes to illness, to vice, to the wars fought on their dull ambitions.

"But now I call you, Johann Faust the eight...the only last living true descendant of your bloodline, to answer to the crimes you have committed against me, against this realm and upon every long live demon! HOW DO YOU PLEAD?"

There was a scandalous wreckage of voices swirling in the air...they screamed for blood, for violent justice. Upon this, Johann raised his head – the sole part of his body that was freed from the binds , far from being intimidated.

"What charges? What trial? This isn't real! This can't be real! It's hardly believable at all!"

At those words, the turmoil in the room only grew. All the demons, monsters and every single strange being stood with their fists in the air as the guards at every entrance only hit the marble floor with handle of the their halberds.

Mephistopheles raised his massive hand and every single individual in the room shushed except for Johann, his heavy breathing the only sound in it.

Piece by small dim piece the silence grew into a painful waiting, a heavy anxiousness took hold of Johann's mind and it was broken by a terrible sound all together...Mephistopheles' voice.

"Real? Believable? What is exactly your idea of "real" and "believable", Mr. Faust? It is what you can touch with your hands, maybe?"

With these words, the chains around the prisoner's arms started to grow like vines, blooming spikes that entered his flesh and opened the door to a long gone and forgotten feeling in the doctor's sensorial memory…physical pain.

Gasping at both the shocks of that unwelcome guest invading his body and the facts that his nervous system hadn't been completely ravaged by morphine, Faust did not see the chains that crawled over his skin like thin silver worms towards his fingers, only the coldness of the metal (wait! That wasn't metal, it was something different, something familiar, but what?), adverted him of the imminent torture.

"Perhaps 'real' and 'believable' is what it can't be concealed, Mr. Faust." Continued calmly the demon as the human screamed of the chains burying themselves into the soft tissue beneath his fingernails, which dyed red from the blood.

A wave of laughs rose from the murmuring forum around the cage; possibly the monsters found it amusing that the condemned man was with wide open eyes and an even more wide open mouth like some howling hairless ape. His Honor had butchered many other mortal humans and even demons for disrespecting him in more trivial ways than this skinny, screeching primate did.

Faster than his tearful eyes could have anticipated, the demon was over him in a heartbeat, giving a sound strike to the cage with something that was a grayish limb showing from the robe; the impact sent the prisoner hurling to the bottom of it, the chains barely managed to hold his body from the impact, but still his back crashed painfully against the bars, sending him through a spiral of pain that he personally voiced with scream bloody gore.

"Or simply something that overcomes you…like pain?" Finished Mephistopheles as he returned to his chair, moving in the manner a large fish does in a sea of red darkness… or more like a shadow across the abyss.

Hissing and panting, Johann stood up, trembling and using one bar of smooth surface as leverage. He laid his head on it, his hair wet with sweat and his eyes hurriedly going from one corner of the room to the other, and the same image: demons on his left side, demons on his right side, the judges in the middle and he was still there. His discolored lips parted to say a sentence, but his tongue trembled so much inside his mouth, he couldn't create a coherent sound.

"Now that your sense of 'real' and 'believable' has been leveled, Mr. Faust, let us return to the question. How you do plead for your crimes?" Asked a deer like judge.

"N…not guilty" Faust managed to reply.

All the creatures gasped in astonishment: this mortal human was not only a shameless one, acting disrespectful towards His Honor; he also dared to deny the guilt in his deeds. A cloud of anger started to condense in the room, threatening to boil the prisoner alive. Nevertheless, he continued, not out of free will, but from the same force that made him answer the first time (Mephistopheles' will, perhaps?):

"Everything I did…everything I abandoned, I destroyed, I tainted…I did it out of love…"

That four letter word caused the faces of all demons to sour. There was the possibility they were like the beings of fairy tales and mythology, which disdain love and goodness, hailing hatred and evilness as core values. But probably they only realized the "love" Faust talked about, was nothing but a pretty curtain concealing something horrible.

"If you please, describe to the jury this act of love, Mr. Faust. What or who do you love so madly, so blindly, so stupidly…you broke the pact between your bloodline and me?" Asked Mephistopheles, slamming his teeth, squeaking jaws together. Obviously, this offense resulted far more serious than previously believed, for no one had ever seen such a reaction from His Honor before.

Faust didn't dare to say another word, fearing that if any of those monsters heard a single thing about Eliza, they would hurt her, or hurt the baby. There was the possibility that they didn't know anything of his wife, and he could lie to them, never truly minding the consequences for him; but on the other hand, they might were already aware of her, and just wanted to hear the whole story sprouting from his throat like a painful and deathly truth. He wanted nothing more than being in her arms again with her lips whispering her love for him. Instead there he was, under the watchful sight of demons and other monstrosities...judging him with their gaze, with their hateful stares and the scowl of the high judge, that being whose greatest desire at that moment was to see him inside a torture device for all eternity.

"Mr. Faust, answer the question" Cut the silence the academic definition of a devil sitting beside Mephistopheles, and soothing the mood with his equally academic voice tone.

Once again, Mr. Faust's lips did not let go any answers; they only complemented the portrait of his battered puppy expression, perhaps begging for a non-existing mercy, perhaps just trying to purge the pain that came again whilst the spiked chains hurled at his surprised body, wrapping around his mid section and then snapping shut. Struggling with the sheer agony, Johann gripped the bars to ease his pain and with a shout he surrendered to it.

"Eliza!"

The demons around him and before him showed their surprise in each unique manner their anatomies could express: Those with brows raised them; those who didn't simply looked to the ones beside them, while Mephistopheles tapped his lips with a finger, watching at the prisoner with indulgence.

"That didn't result too difficult for you. Did it, Mr. Faust?" He asked with a tip of sarcasm in the poison of his voice. "This Eliza you soundly mentioned…is someone important to you? A sibling, a friend, an unrequited love, maybe?"

Ah – there's no need to answer that one, with a snap of fingers, it shall be revealed to us…Your Honor, Lord Corvi? If you please, show to the jury who this Eliza is"

With these words, a judge with a death mask, like face, pitch black eyes and a symbol in his forehead summoned a scroll, unrolled it and clearly read.

"Eliza Amsel, born 26 June 1963 with a chronic disease, cured in 1988, murdered in 1989. In the following years, she spent countless years with her soul bound to an unanimated object, her own remains; this abomination as described here was done by the accused. He bonded his wife's soul with her carcass in a sinful way to avoid her passing to the earth…where it should have stayed"

Although he managed to keep his head high during those humiliating moments, the judge's words felt like a nail passing across a chalkboard to Faust, not only because of someone calling his work of almost half of his life an 'abomination' but also due to the following sentences being the same that his wife told him (or more accurately yelled at him) the moment she was resurrected.

"She didn't deserve what happened!" Screamed Faust, gripping the bars.

The demon closed the scroll in a fit of anger. "It was not your concern! The matters of life and death are never to be disputed: the flown of life is like that, it can end on a heartbeat. You should have known better Mr. Faust"

"Punish him, punish him! Make him suffer! Torture the criminal, torture the criminal!" Chanted the demons around the cage; even though they still didn't know all of Faust's actions, what was read from the scroll was enough for them to see him as a deviant and a monster.

Lord Corvi stood silent while his eyes blazed with the white hot rage of Tartaric hell pits, his stone fist clenched to the scroll as if he was about to curse Faust himself for that insolent interruption.

"Enough!" exclaimed Mephistopheles while raising a hand and punching the table with the other, silencing the entire courtroom. "This courtroom is not a vulgar courtyard for anyone here to request an execution! The accused will receive what he deserves, but not before he confesses the full scope of his crimes!" sentenced the demon while turned his head to the other judge, still with the scroll in hand and his eyes blazing of indignation at the human, "Lord Corvi…please sit down", at which the flames froze into a shade of shame.

"I did it because I loved her! I couldn't be apart from her in such manner! What is wrong with that?" cried Faust, exasperated by the whole affair, and wanting nothing more than end that nightmare, so he could return to his wife and unborn child. However, Mephistopheles wasn't going to let him go.

"Love, you say? Are you sure it was love what motivate your deeds, Mr. Faust…or was it the fact of losing your lifetime work as a doctor?

You might lie to yourself Mr. Faust, but no one in this court is that foolish! You committed a sacrilege not only against me or against both the human and the demon realms, but to your wife; someone who, you like it or not, was mortal and had the right to decide whether to stay dead or not and you disrespected that! Is that what you call love?"

"All those years of wasting yourself away… with so many people who needed your help as a healer, neglected! All those other women who could have been happy by your side, shunned! The sole thing that you showed then and you show now is your selfishness, Mr. Faust"

"There isn't, there wasn't, and there would never be a woman like my Eliza! And I am Doctor Faust! " Replied the prisoner, feeling an effervescent anger inside him rising like yeast.

Mephistopheles gravely chuckled with his mouth closed and replied.

"As I said, you cannot lie to this jury Mr. Faust. We know that you are not officially a doctor at all; your license was revoked after your little breakdown with your colleagues during your wife's funeral. Consider yourself lucky that the people you were living among these last years is the "don't ask questions" type; otherwise you would have end up in jail as a fraud, or in a psychiatric hospital as a basket case"

The booming words of Mephistopheles brought Johann much grief, because he was right, he was absolutely right about everything. He clenched his teeth and his eyes, barely managing to hold the threatening tears. He hit the cage's bottom with his fist ignoring the pain that came with it; the demons looked so pleased with his suffering, but nonetheless he was right...that, that monstrosity was right...he was a horrible thing that only brought suffering to others, especially his love, his only love on this world probably hated that part of him that seek the knowledge of the arts of the undead and the price that came with it, the forbidden knowledge that abides his trust on it and what brought this calamity he was suffering.

_I'm the worst being in the world, but I-I couldn't let Eliza leave me, not after we went through. I finally cured her disease, she didn't deserve it._ - Thought Faust with painful shock.

The guilt was filling his mouth with a bitter taste as he remembered that day: When at some point, they had a discussion about something he couldn't remember at that time. They started to yell at each other (he yelled to his own wife! how could he?), when she turned around and left, wanting to be left alone for some minutes, but he started to follow her, wanting to grab her, yet she somehow sensed him and started to walk faster, almost running, and then...it happened: she tripped with something on the ground, perhaps a rock or a dry root and fell from what seemed to be a cliff to be a lower level on the earth. He remembered that tiny puddle of dark waters, like a dead eye staring at him from below.

He had run to that place, unnoticing everyone behind him and committed to his memory the metallic hues of the water and how little bubbles appeared on the surface. Her left hand was the first thing he saw that emerged from the dark waters, then her arm and her rest of her upper body. Her hair, her soft hair had been wet and dripping with a thick substance he couldn't exactly place…she had been glowing, like a Christmas tree on a cold winter forest or one of those monsters emerging from dark waters like in old vintage science fiction movies: an image incredibly beautiful and at the same time so horrible.

"Are you listening, Faust the Eight?" Mephistopheles voice interrupted his thoughts; he looked so angry and deserving of a better explanation than he was giving himself.

"In case you were not paying attention, we were asking if, after your sorry demonstration of self-destructive attitude and contempt for the rest of mankind, you managed to accomplish your comparable to scratching an itch...goal."

"I did…I think that I did…" Faust heard himself answering.

Mephistopheles exchanged his stance, he became more rigid rubbing his hands together, almost in an exhilarating way.

"Confess you little pest...how did you accomplish such a remarkable 'exploit'?

"…And I did not, too"

"Would you mind to explain yourself?"

"My wife was resurrected, fully resurrected, but it wasn't by my hand"

"And how exactly did she come back to the world of the living, Mr. Faust?"

"She…" He swallowed before continuing, in spite of feeling the mouth dry. "She fell into a puddle of metallic waters, and emerged alive"

"You look confused about the whole ordeal, Mr. Faust, or is just the disappointment of having your promethean goal being snatched by the capricious hand of random?"

"I am…confused. What exactly was that thing?"

"That 'thing', as you call it, is a devil's pool, also known as devil's pit or Lazarus pit. They connect this realm with yours and they have the property, among many others, of resurrecting the dead.

"Resurrecting…the dead"

"Yes. Depending of the concentrations of the fluids in the pit, it can revive both recently deceased and those of decades, even centuries long dead"

"Is that so?" Asked Faust, star struck by the information. "Had I know those pools existed, I would've never used necromancy. All I needed to do was to find one, submerge my wife in there and-"

"It is not that simple, Mr. Faust. The devil's pools are extremely rare in your realm. Usually they appear every few centuries, eventually drying out and vanishing in the same fashion of inter-dimensional doors. Also, they spring in places where the land has great power, the kind that relates with other worlds…"

"Like the world of spirits?" Said Faust.

"Yes. Like the world of spirits" Replied Mephistopheles.

"I see…so a devil's pool would result very difficult to find…"

"They're almost impossible to find in these current days; in consequence almost nobody in your dimension knows about them. The only notorious human who is aware of their existence is a thanatophobic, selfish old man who has been using them to prolong his sorry lifetime, just for fear of natural progression" Mephistopheles chuckled. "Besides, without a soul, the deceased one becomes 'empty', wouldn't you agree?"

Johann clenched his teeth all together; this was, not, this was not good…no good at all. For the second time of his life, he didn't know what to do, who to come with…he felt desperate and to whatever thing destiny had prepared for the likes of him.

No, no! He did the right thing! He saved his love from death, even if he had to made a few sacrifices for her well being, yes that was it; even though she had been mad at the beginning, it worked didn't it? She was alive and well! It was like she had never been taken away from him, to be loved again. He wouldn't bury her for a second time, never!

It had take all his sheer will to not punch the metal floor again, but for the first time Johann could notice how cold he was. The nudity wasn't even a problem; he didn't even have to try to cover his genitals. But the cold managed to shrink his testicles, and the frosty air hitting his body didn't help matters.

He felt his body doing times to accommodate the new discovery of his condition; however, it just distracted him from everything else. Feeling cold was a thing Faust always hated, more than the lack of sleep and food, more than the wounds; a sensation that none of the painkillers in the world would cause to disappear. Perhaps the demons knew about it? They wanted not only to taunt him, to pierce his flesh, to break his miserable heart, but also to make him feel cold?

He suddenly felt his face had been slapped by a tornado; his head smacked painfully against the metal bars. He groaned, bringing his hands to his stinging forehead. He painfully opened his eyes, what had just happened?

He saw a massive fist near his cage: the hand of the big monstrosity, fingers intertwined, and then snapping together. The same force slapped him in the face; it was like an earthquake just exploded around his body.

"Mr. Faust, you are not here for sleep! You have an ongoing trial! We were speaking about your wife, about her condition after her resurrection"

"Her condition..."

"Yes; I believe you know which is the term used for deceased persons who are resurrected by magical means"

"A...a revenant"

"Exactly, a revenant; that is what your wife is...an abnormality wandering the earth"

"My wife...my Eliza is not an abnormality!" Faust interrupted with wrath – She's a…"

"In your twisted point of view she might be an angel, Mr. Faust, but revenants are a serious matter! They are the blank spaces, the clots, if you prefer, in the stream of the living and the dead!"

"Eliza is different!" Faust screamed deaf to the words of the demon. "She has a soul, her soul! She has her free will, her feelings intact!"

Those words caused all judges and the rest of the demons to see Faust with an either frightened or worried look.

"Your wife...still has her soul? After all you did, you gave her soul back?"

"Yes" Replied Faust, with a sudden confidence. " You see...she's not a revenant"

"You're wrong, Mr. Faust". Said Mephistopheles. "She's a far worse type of being than a revenant"

"I don't believe you. She's the same woman she was before dying"

Mephistopheles was growing tired of discussing with this stupid little man, so he decided to pluck another painful chord in Faust's spirit to bring him completely down.

"Indeed, she is the same woman… the same youthful, healthy and beautiful woman; you, however, are not the same man; are you, Mr. Faust?"

The confidence disappeared from Johann's mind, leaving a sudden fret.

"How old was your wife when she passed away; twenty, thirty years old?" Asked the demon with a sly smile "And how old are you now: thirty, forty years old? It doesn't matter, because the age of your body, of your brain and other organs is older…far older"

"I never cared about that" Faust said defiantly.

"Of course you don't, but that doesn't stop the clock to keep ticking. Mr. Faust. All summers lead to autumns, all autumns lead to winters. While your beautiful, youthful Eliza still is fresh like a rose, you are already decaying… all those nights spent with no nutrition, no sleep and those wounds had taken their toll upon you"

Faust did not say a word.

"Otherwise, why do your hands tremble like those of an old man? Why do you lack energies to keep yourself steady in the bedroom?"

A murmuring laugh was heard among the demons. Faust felt more and more ashamed.

"In a not so far future, you won't even be able to move your body. Your organs will fail, your mind will flake, and you'll end as a useless, polluting, excreting waste of space…all while your Eliza will continue to be beautiful and young"

Faust felt a knot in his stomach, so heavy that he lowered his head.

"You would be too weak to enjoy the love you gave everything for, and by the time you realize of it, your body will collapse of the fatigue, will wither away and die…leaving your beautiful and young Eliza a widow"

Johann stood silent. There was nothing he could say, there was nothing he could do.

**A/N: **Ah…cliffhangers, you gotta hate them. Im sorry to cut down the chapter like this, but it's necessary for the next one. D4rk and I already have the next ideas for the following one , and Im sure that whoever is reading this will be happy to know. Just a little longer for the next one. Take care everyone!

-HumanRabbit


	3. The Final Sentence

**A/N:** Well, this is it! The third chapter, where our dear friend Faust meets his ultimate fate at the hands of the demon Mephistopheles, or Mephisto, for those of you who prefer to abbreviate words; we warned you it was going to be a tough ride…and it will get worse!

You may notice it has been a long time since D4rk and I submitted the last chapter, but some things aside of writing became priorities for the both of us, and we had to solve them before passing to the next chapter.

With no more delays, here is it for you. Enjoy the ride…and look out for the detours!

**The Damnation of Faust**

**Chapter 3**

Now then Mr. Faust, care to rethink your statement?

Not a word escaped from the prisoner's lips. Mephistopheles and the other demons understood his silence. It was the one of a desperate person struggling to wake up from a lucid nightmare, but also a silence that was usual upon those condemned who see the full scope of their crimes and realize there is nothing they can do.

Does the jury have a verdict? – asked all eight demons to the rest.

One of the minor demons, the hybrid of a satyr and a boar, approached to the table of the judges with what seemed to be a piece of paper. He looked glared briefly at Faust and then he read with a voice the prisoner recognized to be the one from the beginning:

Your Lordships, by the power given to us from your infinity sapience and the Laws of Thurinja the dark, we, the honorable members of this jury, find the accused Johann Faust VIII – the creature made a pause as he read - guilty as charge! And… several of the members demand the accused to be executed in the most violent and painful forms Your Lordships may allow.

In a last defiant gesture, Faust chuckled softly as the creature passed him by, glaring at him, perhaps wanting to spit at his human face.

Are there any last words you'd like to say before your sentence is read, Mr. Faust? – asked Mephistopheles.

I understand it…I completely understand it now: I am a monstrosity, equal or worse than the ones in this room. All I ever wanted and all I ever needed turned out to not be the same. And now that you'll take me away and put inside of your torture contraptions for the eternity, I'll think on the fact that my wife would be far away from me, but at least, she will walk the earth, fresh and gorgeous as the loveliest rose… - the tears were falling across Johann's face as he spoke - I won't be there to listen to her voice, to touch her skin and hair, to kiss her lips…but I shall endure every condemn as long as she is alive.

Rather beautiful and hypocrite words Mr. Faust, but I'm afraid that won't happen.

What do you mean? What are you going to do with Eliza?

I am not going to _do_ anything to her; I'll simply _undo_ her.

What?

All that magic you were using Mr. Faust during all those years…it polluted the earth, caused chaos, disorder. And your wife, like it or not, is a loose end - -

No, no! I won't accept this! You have no right! No right for this - -

You had your chance to speak, Mr. Faust! – Screamed Mephistopheles as the prisoner's mouth started to melt and close, leaving only skin where his lips used to be. – And I ran out of patience with your excuses!

Mephistopheles had to stop a moment, panting from the sudden wrath that took over him. After he felt the coolness returning to his senses, he continued:

As you appropriately said, you're a monstrosity. Your acts caused damages beyond repair not only to this dimension, but to yours: All those souls you enslaved for those…battles you had, the energy that might be still decomposing, contaminating places, the innocent people you harmed in your blindness…you like it or not, present deeds can't erase past grievances.

Johann had his eyes pinned to Mephistopheles, a mix of helplessness and rage was leaking through them, and they slide across the demon's stone face. So focused he was on this, that he didn't notice the chains crawling through his back towards his neck.

Which is why I'll go to the very moment you began with this. And I shall undo all the magic, return that power to its rightful source…while you face the fate you deserve.

Faust started to see a series of images flashing across his mind, praying for them to be an illusion: It was in that moment that the empty promise of the demon's statement brought a vision of despair, a world where he would never had fought for her soul – or more correctly fought and failed - , a world where he never saw the error of his ways. If he had not joined Yoh and his friends…where he would stand right now? He admitted that if he had not seen reason, his experiments would not be stopped… the pain it would have caused Eliza; it was worst compared to the pain he had to endure. And in the end it would have cost him his life without success. But he had succeeded, damn it!

Yes, he screwed things up, he almost destroyed her; his own recklessness had fucked with his resolve to this world, to his Eliza…it had been unacceptable, what he had done to her. But she had forgiven him at the end! He brought her back! Even though it was an accident she was there, she was there with him. Waiting to be loved, to be hugged, to be kissed and for her to comfort him that he wasn't human waste and incapable of love.

In his reverie, he never saw the chains that had been wrapped harmlessly at the bars rising in the air and starting to silently wrap around an empty space of his neck. His eyes suddenly bulged at the pressure as he tried to bring a hand to his neck in vain.

Do you feel it, Mr. Faust? The chain wrapping around your neck? It is nothing more than the dog chain you hanged yourself with; when you failed to reanimate the dead, when you were taken as insane and persecuted. Do you remember it?

The images flew through his mind in an instant; parts of his life that didn't happen until that moment…and in spite of it, he thought it was over: The screams, the insults, the people throwing stones at him whenever he was present. But that never happened! It's an illusion! His mind screamed at him. And at the same time…why he was trying to say himself it was over? He started to fall in a schizophrenic state

Still, everyone thought he was insane, batshit insane! People refused to sell him food; he had to travel on foot to another town to get supplies, or his morphine. Why, why he was remembering all this? All of those events that never happened? And why he was clinging to memories that were fading from reality itself?

It was this monster, th-this monster making him remember all of those times, all those lies...the sole moment that wasn't tainted was the one when he had to remove Eliza from her grave.

In an instant, all those images, long forgotten, new like an opened scar, were hurled at his eyes, even though he grabbed his head. He wanted to scream at the miserable past the demon was weaving at that moment, but the chains started to choke him and his mouth was gone. He was going to lose everything he fought for, and he couldn't scream! He had no mouth and he had to scream!

His brain started to twitch painfully. He couldn't think, he couldn't breathe; the images were overwhelming him like the smell of rotten flesh…rotten flesh!

His mind was split in two, his eyes paralyzed with true fear as his impending doom conjured the image of Eliza dissolving into nothing, her flesh peeling from her bones, her skeletal mouth opened in surprise, and these same bones he manipulated so delicately, so tenderly during years, crumbled to dust.

The final blunt came as a sound: a heartbeat that filled his ears, at first very strong, fading to small and soft afterwards. Maybe it was the pressure of the chain that was driving him mad, but between each heartbeat he could glimpse the image he had seen with his wife a few months ago, the one that filled their eyes with tears of joy: A small kite floating in a pool of amniotic liquid…their baby.

Feeling the pressure of the chains about to break his neck, Faust somehow managed to scream with all the strength he had left. Rupturing the membrane where his mouth was, his voice resounded like an earthquake and awoke forces he wasn't aware of, neither the demons.

Skeletons of every size and shape that imagination can conceive sprouted out of the walls, fragments of the furniture started to break out of their structure, attacking the minor creatures, grabbing the judges by their robes, bringing the guards down to the floor.

Like dying worms, the chains shook violently before falling off the prisoner's body, and the cage collapsed, causing its captive to fall to the emptiness beneath.

"Please God", begged Johann before the darkness engulfed once again, "let this end, let this end!"

"_How this puny human had so much power?"_

"_I believed he only could use this necromancy in his dimension"_

"_Maybe you underestimated the accused, Mephisto. After all, didn't you put his sorry arse inside that cage to avoid any attack coming from him?"_

"_That is not your problem, Lord Divarala. He might have used that power to free himself, but that won't save him from being punished"_

"_It is true: A criminal like him cannot go his way just like that. And still…that demonstration of power…it would a waste if we condemn him to death or endless torture. It can take years, centuries, even millennia to presence such strength, such reach again…"_

Faust's tired eyes opened slowly to see the eight demons standing in front of him. Feeling that the nightmare would never end, he also realized he wasn't bound anymore, and his clothes and belongings were back in their place.

Ah, you woke up, Mr. Faust. The guards managed to grab before you'd fall into the pit beneath the cage.

Pit? Beneath the cage? I…don't understand.

You simply showed the scope of your powers to us and to the jury. Quite impressive, I must say. An invaluable skill. You passed out later and we ordered for you to be clothed again.

Th - -thank you. –he replied sheepishly, rubbing his wrists.

Do not thank us, Mr. Faust. You are still guilty of your charges and you must atone for them; however, I have reconsidered your previous sentence and decided to give it a change.

What change?

All that necromantic power you possess, you shall use them for me.

For you?

Yes. There are many unbalances between this realm and yours: Deserters that leap from one through another dimension using corpses, ancient reliquaries in the hands of people even more irresponsible than yourself, among others. If you accept this, I will allow you to continue your life with your wife, for you will purge your faults and those of your ancestor.

Faust raised a brow in disbelief. He was wary of putting himself (and Eliza) at a demon's mercy. On the other hand, Mephistopheles had proved to be a man of his word; also it was better than having the last years of his life undone and being hanged with a dog chain.

What are the conditions?

Without answering, Mephistopheles clapped to a hooded figure standing in the corner of the room that, at its lord's command, approached the group carrying a silver box; with a gesture of hand (claw?) the being opened the box, revealing an hourglass filled with red sand.

This hourglass marks your time, Mr. Faust. Whenever I give you a mission, the sand will start to run and if you accomplish it successfully, it will either stop to run, or the hourglass will transform into a crystal ball. For every assignment accomplished, your debt will be settled one hourglass at a time. However, if you fail or refuse to take any of the jobs, there will be time added.

Time added? To what?

To your condemnation, of course. What you went through at the courtroom, you will go through each and every of our torture halls for the quantity of time you gained with your failures: seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries…I take it that you will do your best ?

Johann did not answer that one; instead he made more questions:

What are the rules for this? How am I going to accomplish these tasks? How will I know what to do?

The rules are simple: You will do as I say, as I command and nothing else. You shall receive everything you need, from money to powers, in order to do your jobs. As for the information, you'll have sent two 'supervisors' to carry my word and keep an eye on you at all times.

But know this, Mr. Faust: At the first protest, the first rebellion against me or my orders, I will call this deal off, you'll be immediately executed and your woman's life essence returned to me, all at once. Do you understand?

Johann nodded.

Good. Now that you know what will happen if disobey me Mr. Faust, I insist for your sake you don't do it.

What kind of tasks I'm supposed to do? You haven't answered me yet.

All the eight demons smiled.

All in good time, but for now rest well...you have an important meeting with your new life.

W - -wait a minute! How am I going to return to my place?

You will return in the same way you came here, Mr. Faust. Simply as that.

A rider brought me to the town, but before that, I…that joint in my car, you put it there?

Mephistopheles looked startled and mildly amused at the idea:

I have no idea what you are talking about, Mr. Faust. That joint was in your current car's glove box since 1975. Maybe you should have checked before buying it.

Blushing with the commentary, Faust asked how he was going to return home, if he had no idea of how he ended there.

Mephistopheles grinned at him:

What is the last thing you remember before ending in this realm?

Th – there were strange beings wandering in the freeway, and I was struck by a l - -

Johann didn't have time to finish, because one of the guards struck him with a staff that blurred his eyesight, causing every shade of color, all the visages of the demons, the ornaments on the walls and every other thing in that ghastly realm to fade to white.

The last words he heard were from Lord Divarala, the androgyny looking judge, saying:

"_We will have to replace the bones with stone again."_

**A/N: **That was unexpected, was it? Well, we've got more surprises for the next chapter. We hope you enjoyed this one and don't forget to review. Thanks!


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